Pressure mounted on the government earlier this year to increase gas storage capacity after high winter energy demand depleted storage levels and exposed the country's growing reliance on imports.

"Few countries have the amount of gas (we have) from domestic production and via pipelines from countries with secure supply like Norway. In the UK we are not reliant on gas from storage, far from it," Davey told a House of Lords' committee.

He said it was not easy to compare Britain's storage capacity figures with those of other countries.

Because of historically high domestic reserves in the North Sea, Britain's storage capacity can hold just 15 days' worth of demand, compared with over 100 days in France or Germany, which have very little of their own gas.

Falling production and rising demand has made Britain a net importer of natural gas since 2004. Its own reserves now cover barely half its needs.

British gas prices shot to near record highs in March on the National Balancing Point (NBP) gas hub as storage levels fell by more than 90 percent, triggering worries about possible outages.

In response to concerns about a lack of investment in gas storage, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is looking at possible ways to encourage greater gas security of supply.

This could include forcing suppliers to hold a minimum level of storage volume to meet a defined security of supply standard, something which many continental European governments do already.

Other measures could include government subsidies to give utilities an incentive to invest in storage.

Davey said he would not comment on the exact nature of DECC's work as it was due to be published shortly.

"All the work done shows in broad terms the gas market works very well. We have pipelines from Norway and from the Continent, we have our own production and we can import LNG (liquefied natural gas)," he said.

"The reason we are taking a look at this is you can't say there is no risk at all. It would be completely wrong to be complacent."

It would also be wrong to suggest the market was not already investing in gas storage, Davey said.

"New gas storage has come online recently and there are 12 major projects with planning consent," he said.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; editing by Jason Neely)

American Electric Power Co Inc, the hardest-hit utility in Ohio, said a strong band of severe weather traveled across the state Wednesday afternoon, causing "considerable damage" to its electric system.

"Strong winds with gusts registering at over 70 miles per hour in some parts of the state, coupled with heavy rains and severe lightning, has caused damage to electrical equipment, broke poles and downed power lines," AEP said in a release.

AEP warned customers to be prepared for the possibility of extended power outages over the next several days.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Teacher Orvar Arnarson, 41, and student Andrimar Pordarson, 25, jumped separately, not in tandem, on Saturday after successfully completing two jumps earlier that day with 20 other people. The two Icelandic skydivers did not return from their third jump, tipping off an hours-long air and ground search around the Zephyrhills facility, about 30 miles northeast of Tampa. The bodies were discovered later that evening in the woods.

Investigators will review the helmet cam footage to try to glean more about what happened, said Pasco County sheriff's spokeswoman Melanie Snow.

The cause of death was blunt force trauma, the medical examiner's office said. Autopsy results were pending, but a preliminary investigation determined that the manner of death was accidental.

The men didn't deploy their main parachutes, which could mean that they lost altitude awareness and didn't know where they were during the jump, Skydive City co-owner T.K. Hayes told The Associated Press on Sunday. Both victims had backup automatic activation devices, but they didn't have time to fully inflate.

Out of just over 3 million jumps, 19 skydivers died last year across the U.S., according to the United States Parachute Association. Experts said it is "very rare" for two jumpers to die in the same accident.

"It happens from time to time if two skydivers collide while flying their parachutes if they don't see each other," said Nancy Koreen, Director of Sport Promotion for association.

"In that situation, their canopies can tangle, causing an accident. I don't yet know the details of this particular accident, but from what I understand, this was a different case," she said, adding that "it's extremely rare for this type of double fatality to occur."

The victims were part of a skydiving group from Iceland who travel to Florida annually.

LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec (Reuters) - Residents of the town of Lac-Megantic in Quebec were coming to grips on Thursday with the reality that 50 of their own were most likely dead in the aftermath of the worst railway disaster in North American in more than two decades.

Five days after a train hauling 72 cylinders of crude oil jumped the track and exploded into a wall of fire, provincial police said they had recovered 20 bodies, with another 30 people still missing and presumed dead, confirming the worst fears of a community that had all but given up hope.

"She's dead," said Jean-Guy Lapierre of his niece, holding a copy of a Quebec tabloid that had printed pictures of some of the town's missing young people on its front page. "She was just 28."

The crash and subsequent explosions rocked the eastern Canadian town of Lac-Megantic shortly after 1 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Saturday, leveling its historic downtown strip.

Numerous houses and businesses were burned to the ground, including the Musi-Cafe, a popular bar that was packed with people, eyewitnesses told Reuters.

On Wednesday, the head of the railway company said the engineer probably did not set enough handbrakes when he parked his train some eight miles west of town late on Friday, leading to the deadly accident. The official apologized to residents of the town of about 6,000.

The words of remorse came too late for many locals who remain angry at the company - Montreal Maine and Atlantic - and accuse chairman Ed Burkhardt of shirking responsibility for the accident.

"They still aren't taking the blame," said Christiane, a woman who lived near the blast site and declined to give her last name. "First it's the firemen, now the engineer, who will they blame tomorrow?"

Burkhardt had previously said that the air brakes that would have prevented the disaster failed because they were powered by an engine that was shut down by firefighters as they dealt with a fire shortly before the catastrophe occurred.

On Wednesday, his focus was squarely on the engineer.

"It's very questionable whether the hand brakes were properly applied on this train," he told a crush of reporters. "As a matter of fact, I'll say they weren't, or we wouldn't have had this incident."

More than 200 investigators are working day and night to sift through the charred wreckage in the center of town in what authorities say is a crime scene. They have made no arrests.

A death toll of 50 would make the accident Canada's deadliest since in 1998, when a Swissair jet crashed into the Atlantic off the coast of Nova Scotia, killing 229 people.

It would also be North America's worst rail crash since 1989, when 112 people died when an 11-car passenger train plunged off a bridge in Mexico.

STILL ALIVE

But there were glimmers of hope too.

Nicole Carrier, who works at a local hospital, was shocked to open a newspaper Wednesday morning and see her own face under the headline: 'Have you seen these people?'

"It's Facebook's fault," said Carrier, explaining that a friend's daughter had posted a frantic message on the social media service asking if she and her partner were still alive. The couple, who were evacuated from their home and did not have access to the Internet, did not respond.

Her partner, Bernard Fortier, added that their faces were still being broadcast on television as part of the missing.

"This morning, I went to the police station, and they said, 'oh, we're so happy to see you alive, Mr. Fortier,'" he said with a smile.

MMA is one of many North American railroads that have stepped up crude-by-rail deliveries as producers seek alternatives to pipelines that have been stretched to capacity by higher U.S. and Canadian output.

That has led to a shift in the type of rail cars passing through small towns like Lac-Megantic. According to residents, the trains used to carry mainly lumber, but now they carry various hazardous materials.

(Reporting by Julie Gordon; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Stacey Joyce)

Members of the General Synod said Monday they would back plans to draft new proposals paving the way for women bishops in July or November 2015.

Negotiations on women bishops collapsed in November following a failed vote among senior church members.

Rev. Nigel Stock said last year's decision had caused "profound mystification and unhappiness" in the church and dealt a serious blow to female members of the clergy. Women can become priests.

The renewed push to introduce women bishops comes after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, spoke of the "significant absence of trust" over the issue within the church's governing body.

In a lawsuit filed with the Manhattan federal court on Thursday, BMI said it had proposed an increase in Pandora's fees "consistent with market rates to reflect the explosive growth of the Internet music streaming marketplace."

BMI collects license fees on behalf of over 600,000 affiliated songwriters, composers and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed.

One of the main challenges facing the decade-old Pandora is the rising cost of licensing music, which grows as more people tune in. The company had about 70.8 million active listeners at the end of May.

On Tuesday, Pandora said it agreed to purchase KXMZ-FM, a Rapid City, South Dakota-area radio station.

Pandora hopes the radio station deal will allow it to pay lower rates similar to the ones paid by traditional broadcasters such as Clear Channel Communications Inc on their digital services, such as Clear Channel's iHeartRadio.

BMI said in the filing it expects Pandora to claim it is no different from commercial broadcast radio now that it owns a radio station.

BMI currently has agreements with Pandora's rivals Spotify and Music Choice, in which the rates and terms are "the same as, or higher than, BMI's proposal to Pandora," it said in the filing.

BMI did not disclose the proposed license fees in the court filing. It has requested the court to confirm as "reasonable" the rates and terms requested by BMI for using music in the BMI portfolio.

Meanwhile, BMI said it had negotiated an interim license fee to be paid by Pandora starting January 1 until such time the dispute is resolved.

"Disputes regarding the reasonableness of fees between BMI and music users are adjudicated in federal court ... we look forward to the court's oversight of this matter," Pandora spokeswoman Mollie Starr told Reuters.

The case is in re Broadcast Music Inc vs Pandora Media Inc, Case No. 13-4037, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Jeremy Laurence and Mark Potter)

The 33-year-old Canadian will join the Flyers after spending his entire 14-year league career with the Tampa Bay Lightning, with whom he won the Stanley Cup in 2004.

"It is a great honor for me to be a part of the Flyers," Lecavalier said in a statement.

"This is a great hockey team with a great history which I'm very proud to be a part of. I'm going to do my best to help lead this team to another championship."

Drafted number one overall by the Lightning in 1998, Lecavalier was released last week by Tampa Bay to clear space under a smaller salary cap. He had signed a five-year deal with the Flyers worth $22.5 million according to local media.

Lecavalier has scored at least 20 goals in each of his full seasons in the league, with last year's lockout-shortened campaign the only exception. In 1,037 career games for Tampa Bay, he scored a franchise-high 383 goals.

In other moves on Saturday, the St. Louis Blues agreed to a one-year deal with veteran forward Derek Roy, pending the results of a physical, while the Buffalo Sabres signed defensemen Alexander Sulzer (one-year) and Drew Bagnall (multi-year).

"Proud to (be) part of the St Louis Blues organization. Excited to get started," tweeted the 30-year-old Roy, who split last season between the Dallas Stars and Vancouver Canucks, registering seven goals and 21 assists.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Ian Ransom)

No official update was made Tuesday morning on the status of the ailing 94-year-old, who was admitted June 8 to the hospital for a recurring lung infection. Court documents say he is breathing with the help of a respirator.

Well-wishers from around the world continue to stop outside his Johannesburg home and the Pretoria hospital where he is being treated.

Mandela spent 27 years in prison during white rule and was released in 1990. He led the shift from apartheid to democracy and became South Africa's first democratically elected president in 1994.

The 36-year-old welterweight - considered the best defensive boxer of his generation - topped the magazine's Fortunate 50 list, issued on Wednesday. Mayweather also took the top spot last year, earning an estimated $85 million, again from just two fights, the magazine reported.

Miami Heat basketball star LeBron James, 28, a four-time National Basketball Association Most Valuable Player, came in this year in the number two slot, earning a total of $56.5 million.

The list is calculated by combining estimated salary, winnings and endorsements. Mayweather's total earnings are even more impressive considering he received no endorsement money either this year or last.

James' $56.5 million income combines a $17.5 million salary with an additional $39 million in endorsements.

Golfer Tiger Woods, the highest paid U.S. athlete from 2004, when the list was first published, through 2011, dropped to the No. 5 slot on this year's list, earning $40.8 million.

Chicago Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano came in as the 50th highest-paid U.S. athlete with an estimated $18.2 million.

Candidates for the list must be U.S. citizens and compete in a U.S.-based league.

Internationally, soccer great David Beckham is estimated to earn more than $48 million, landing him the top spot on the magazine's annual list of highest-paid athletes worldwide, The International 20.

(Reporting by Chris Francescani; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Tim Dobbyn)